A Parsi tragedy

I was thoroughly disappointed reading reviews in Parsi Press, including Parsiana, about the film Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi which I watched on August 25 and felt disgusted by.

Since the 1950s, it is a fashion if not penchant to portray Parsis as idiots, fools and buffoons in Hindi films, and make them a laughing stock of other communities. In one movie Johnny Walker was shown wearing a sudreh. Parsis lapped it up with "Apro Johnny kévo aapooné hasaavéch (how much our Johnny makes us laugh)."

If another community was reviled in this fashion there would be consequences as witnessed in Libya, Syria, Egypt, Pakistan, and other such places some time ago.

It was totally appalling to watch in the movie one Feroze Gandhi running after women with garlands pretending that they are Indira Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India, with whom this chap is in love. Are Parsis really such stupid fools?

What takes the cake is that Shirin’s father who has been in a coma for many years suddenly comes to his senses one fine day and asks for a Mangola.

This is no comedy but a tragedy that Parsis should lump it and swallow all kinds of humiliation in the name of humor.

In The Times of India of September 27, 2012, under the headline "Remove objectionable scenes from movie" Christians protested against certain scenes in a movie Malamaal Kamaal Dhamaal, handing over a memorandum to Indian Motion Pictures Producers’ Association and to the Censor Board.